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Narrow Angled Apple Cactus Cereus Stenogonus
1x well-calloused just starting to root ~22cm apple cactus cutting!
It will be sent bare-rooted wrapped well in recycled paper materials to avoid transit damage and rot.
On arrival just remove them from the packaging and stand upright in a pot of completely bone dry sandy soil mix, being careful not to bury it too deep.
Do NOT water for a couple weeks to allow the plants to heal and form a callous, but after that you can give them a good soak once a fortnight or when the soil has dried out.
Most commonly called Peruvian Apple Cactus(along with a heap of other Cereus species), this fella also shares the names caracore, cardon, cardon mesopotamico, Cereus dayamii, Cereus roseiflorus, Cereus tacuaralensis, cierge a angled etroits, narrow angled cactus, narrow angled cereus, Piptanthocereus dayami, Piptanthocereus dayamii, Piptanthocereus stenogonus, and saulen kaktus.
It’s a native to Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia , Uruguay, Brazil as well as other parts of South America.
Unlike a lot of other Cereus species, these guys can handle heavy clay and seasonal saturation without rotting off at the base. They can also survive temperatures all the way down to -5 celcius in their natural range. Pretty amazing I reckon!
Fruit.
I will start by saying that I have not seen or tasted the fruit of this particular plant but as soon as I have I will update the advert, and there is botanical literature says the large 10cm oval shaped fruit taste “unpleasant”.
Taste is subjective and my thought immediately is does that really mean unpleasant, or is in just not great compared to some of the much more common, amazing tasting cactus fruit available to an expert in the field?
I’ve had several very well-respected experts on fruit tell me the Imperial mandarin really doesn’t taste any good, and that the Cavendish banana and the R2E2 mango are only fit for pig food!
All quite a reasonable comments given the context of their decades of experience with 1000’s of different cultivars, yet absolutely bloody ridiculous if you take out of that context and make the statement to the average dude in the street.
Especially if they are one of the farmers who grow tonnes of these very very tasty million dollar crops.
Doesn’t change the fact that due to their experience these are sub par varieties that they personally would never bother growing. Maybe this is the same situation and the “unpleasant” description word from a single expert just sounds a lot harsher than it was ever intended due to context. Maybe even just due to translation to English? It could have even been one freak bad plant, or perhaps it is normally great but the fruit fermented in the heat and conditions was the issue, not species?
That’s my thought process, probably still worth a gamble, if its not great the progeny of it crossed with a relative still could be amazing?
The thing that absolutely sealed the deal for me is the fruit of most Cereus Stenogonus in their natural range are RED FLESHED!
While red-skinned, white-fleshed Apple cactus fruit are pretty common, red-fleshed Cereus are suuuuuuper hard to come across in Australia.
If you have any Cereus with a red-fleshed fruit I will immediately buy a cutting from you(assuming I can pay the bills at the same time). If you go searching online pretty much all you will find is me endlessly spamming the internet hassling forums, rare plant groups and growers going back years, an unbelievable amount of hours put into it with near bugger all results.
Tasty red fruited Cereus absolutely do exist in friends collections overseas(but still very uncommon even there), but quarantine regulations make import to Australia impossible due to prohibitive cost.
Dark pink flowers are often a clue to red or purple fruit colour several cacti experts from overseas tell me(I agree, but with my more limited experience that doesn’t mean much by itself) so I always try and collect random pink flowering forms. By doing this I have amassed a few winners for my breeding program.
Anyway, this fella fits the description of a plant that MAY have red flesh, the owner tells me they are sure it has pink flowers, a lot pinker than the other Cereus they had, and they tell me it gets fruit that the birds eat meaning they are most likely quite self-sterile as it flowers later than the others nearby.
Because its so big they never really cut one open or paid any attention to the inside. Ornamental cactus is their passion not edible fruit production like me.
I figured I now had plenty of reason to hassle them to buy a cutting, and it seems well worth a gamble. Mine plants are getting bigger so I now have a couple well-rooted cuttings for sale but no flowers or fruit on them just yet.
Like I say, regardless of what it produces I’m excited to see what happens when I cross it up with my other Fruiting Cereus Cactus and if you reckon that all sound pretty cool and wanna have a gamble too, then now’s your chance!
Grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!
